Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Ideas Love 'Em or Hate 'Em

I know I should count my blessings that I do have ideas. Note these are not full story ideas just glimpses of said story for which I have to think about a plot. One hit me today while I was working on the final scene of Beloved. The problem is that sometimes, like this one, the idea is really strong. So I open up a new document and start typing in the idea. This would be all well and good if it drained that character out of my system and I could bounce back to poor Emily. Well, I can't so I need to take a break, because this character that doesn't even have a name is an emotional wreck. She's angry. Fiercely angry and that just doesn't work with Emily. In the fight or flight model, Emily is flight while this woman is fight, even if someone is stabbing her to death, she'd be biting and scratching whatever she could reach. A woman with nothing left to lose. Can you imagine her? She's stuck there and I typed her out and it made her whole. She doesn't have a name yet. She'll probably get sucked into the angel series. I just have to think of the right man to bring her back from the brink. I need to learn to write faster.

Have you ever had an idea streak through you while you were doing something else? Where it grabbed your attention as it flew by in its raw form? Were you able to break away from the distraction and chaos it left in its wake?

5 comments:

Those are miserable little monsters aren't they? And I bet, if you'd listened closely as you started putting this new idea on paper you could have heard the sound of laughter - the idea knew it had you.

Yes, I have had this happen. One of my open projects came about that way. I spent a couple days working on it until I had it down enough that I could come back to it later. I flipped between the two for a while as well since it served a good counterpoint. I went from a very eager hero to a very angry/bitter one so I could write to whatever mood I was in at the moment.

One of the tools I use for getting into story is playlists. I have some music that carries over, story to story, but I have some music that is very story specific and when I need to get back to a story I play only that music.

Yes, that's happened to me too. I try to writed only the bare bones of their story as I know it, with maybe a few lines of dialogue to place them/ an event in their life.It doesn't always work, of course, but that's what I try to do.

I'm easily distracted. Too easily, sometimes ... usually I do a pretty good job of writing the bare bones, that way I can slip it into a folder and come back later and at least have an indicator of where to go.

But then there are times .....

Sometimes an idea really won't let go of me, even after I have to bones down. At that point I have to ask myself if the idea is really there or if whatever else I'm working on is stuck and I'm just avoiding fixing the problems.